What does the UK’s proposed social media ban mean for the video games industry?

In what may prove to be significant news for the UK games industry, former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a social media ban designed to protect children online.

This follows overwhelming support in the government’s ‘Growing up in the online world’ consultation, with nine in 10 parents backing a ban for under-16s. According to Keir Starmer: “Tech giants had their chance and failed, but we’re stepping in to protect children”.

Australia and China already have similar restrictions in place, but the UK’s approach is already being described as ‘Australia-plus’ as it goes beyond social media into other live services. Restrictions on livestreaming and communications with strangers online will clearly have a wider impact on the UK games industry and beyond.

What is being proposed?

The government intends to use the same model as Australia, targeting platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X, though messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal are not intended to be included.

Critically for the games industry, high-risk features including livestreaming and stranger communication will be restricted for under-16s on gaming and other online services and switched off by default for 16- and 17-year-olds. These restrictions will be backed up by stronger age checks, with the first regulations expected before the end of the year and changes due to be implemented in spring 2027.

The existing regulatory landscape under the Online Safety Act 2023

Obligations to protect children online are not new in the UK.

The Online Safety Act 2023 already imposes extensive duties of care on providers of regulated user-to-user services, requiring that services are safe by design and provide a higher standard of protection for children than for adults. Providers of services likely to be accessed by children must carry out children’s risk assessments, assessing risks posed by functionalities enabling adults to contact children and taking proportionate measures to mitigate those risks.

Age assurance requirements

Age assurance is a central pillar of the existing framework, but the requirements and suitability of various age verification methods and tools are still unclear in practice.

The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has now asked Ofcom to launch a rapid assessment of what ‘highly effective’ age assurance looks like for determining whether someone is over 16, including emerging methods, with publication due by October 2026 to inform parliamentary debate on the forthcoming regulations.

Guidance on which of the myriad age verification methods and tools are suitable would no doubt be welcomed by the industry, along with anything that enables players to use a single age verification ‘token’ across multiple games and platforms.

How the proposed ban goes beyond the Online Safety Act

The proposed social media ban goes significantly further than the existing framework, moving beyond a focus on requiring platforms to assess and mitigate risks and instead imposing an outright prohibition on under-16s accessing social media platforms altogether, combined with feature-level restrictions on gaming and other live services.

The existing regime requires service providers to manage harmful content, whereas the proposed ban seeks to remove children from certain platforms and prevent them from accessing certain player-to-player features entirely.

Won’t children or their parents just use VPNs?

Some children in Australia have been able to get around the ban using VPNs, fake accounts or other methods. The UK government is aware of this risk and has commissioned research to better understand how children are using VPNs and the risks involved.

What this means for the games industry

The implications for the sector are significant and could fundamentally reshape how games are developed for the UK market.

UK games trade body UKIE has welcomed the recognition that social media and games are distinct from one another and has offered to help the government shape regulatory frameworks that are suitable for games.

The restrictions on livestreaming and stranger communication for under-16s, and default ‘off’ settings for 16- and 17-year-olds, will require studios to rethink how they design multiplayer and social features.

Games that rely on open-world player-to-player interaction, in-game voice or text chat with strangers or integrated streaming functionality will likely need to build in robust age-gating mechanisms unless this can be effectively handled at the platform level.

Developers may also need to create tiered experiences – for example, one version of their game’s social features for verified adult users and a more restricted version for younger players – or, in the worst-case scenario, consider removing certain interactive features from UK releases altogether.

For smaller studios with limited resources, the compliance burden of implementing ‘highly effective’ age assurance technology could prove particularly challenging, potentially deterring them from including social or live-service features in their games at all.

The requirement for age assurance also raises practical questions around user experience and player retention. Friction when launching a game, whether through facial recognition checks, identity document verification or other methods, could deter players from engaging with titles released in the UK, particularly where competing markets impose fewer barriers and platforms offer simple refund mechanisms.

The industry should be closely monitoring Ofcom’s rapid assessment of highly effective age assurance, due by October 2026, for clarity on what will be expected in practice.

If you are currently developing a game with player-to-player features that will be released in the UK, in addition to your existing risk assessment and moderation obligations under the Online Safety Act, the upcoming social media ban should now be firmly on your radar.

Early engagement with these requirements during the design phase may help avoid a more complicated and disruptive compliance retrofit in the lead-up to launch.